On Thursday, March 10 Paul Betts, Professor of Modern European History at St Antony’s College (University of Oxford) and holder of the 2021-2022 Ganshof van der Meersch Chair, gave a public lecture entitled “A Re-Civilising Mission: The Cultural Reconstruction of Europe after 1945”.
Abstract
In this lecture, Paul Betts discussed his new book on Europe after 1945, which explores how changing understandings of civilization underpinned a new politics of identity in an era of defeat and division across the Cold War divide. It traces how this long reviled term of European superiority enjoyed a popular comeback in many circles, variously used to imagine Europe as a whole as well as to justify its political differences. The new mission to re-civilize Europe was by no means confined to conservatives, and was seized upon by a surprising array of competing causes and interest groups from across the political spectrum and Iron Curtain. In the aftermath of war, civilization served as a favorite point of reference to grasp Europe’s new postwar condition beyond the nation-state and Cold division, and to reconsider its relationship to the past, the future, and the rest of the world.
The video recording of the lecture will soon be available on our website.
More information about Paul Betts and the Ganshof van der Meersch Chair can be found here.
